The US & others working with Pakistan

[carl]

After the May, 2011, raid on the Mehran naval station there was some talk that there was an inside job element to the attack. That seemed a little out there to me. I asked a Pakistani friend of mine, a Political Science professor, what she thought. I was expecting she would tell me something about the nature of rumors and paranoia in the Pakistani media, so I was quite surprised when she told me she thought it was perfectly plausible and that it was her impression that there was more than a little factionalization in the Pakistani military and paramilitary forces.

Now, as far as I know there ended up being no evidence that the Mehran attack was an inside job in any way. And my friend was not claiming to have any inside track information on that event in particular or the situation in general.* But I did come away from the conversation with the notion that it is probably worth considering that while the Pakistani security professionals might all be on the same team that they might not all be reading from the same playbook. (Of course there are a variety of opinions within any institution, but I mean something beyond minor differences of opinion.)

*She does have family members who have served as officers in the Pakistani military, though of course many Pakistanis of her class and status do.

Did they ever get the whole story on that attack?

[davidbfpo]

Carl asked:

Did they ever get the whole story on that attack?

IIRC the official Pakistani report was "leaked" and is within this thread. It was quite damming. Obviously I maybe mistaken.

[ganulv]

Did they ever get the whole story on that attack?

I am assuming they did. I am also assuming we never will.

[davidbfpo]

A succinct explanatory comment on WoTR; which ends with:

Ultimately, the point here is not to legitimize Pakistani conspiracy theories. Rather, it is to highlight how U.S. policies in Pakistan often strengthen—and validate—anti-American narratives that Washington would much prefer to undercut.

Link:http://warontherocks.com/2014/03/fou...an-youd-think/

[omarali50]

LOL. I wonder if Mr Kugelman has been picked up by paknationalist psyops yet? His work will be much cited in the days to come. If national security types get credit for citations, this will transform his ratings completely.
I do realize that he means well, but I am not sure what the meaning is supposed to be? what is the lesson here?

Not that it matters. We are about to win a strategic victory (probably with US support as Kerry and company arrange an honorable exit). But as I asked in 2011, what then? What if we win?

http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksd...if-we-win.html

[ganulv]

LOL. I wonder if Mr Kugelman has been picked up by paknationalist psyops yet? His work will be much cited in the days to come.

And? If not his, someone else’s.

I do realize that he means well, but I am not sure what the meaning is supposed to be? what is the lesson here?

One lesson would be to keep things in perspective. Don’t sacrifice big picture, long term success at the altar of the crisis of the moment. Anyone who thinks endangering the closing round of decades of work towards eradication of polio from our planet was worth the risk if it meant getting a DNA sample from OBL (talk about risk aversion; were there not multiple lines of evidence that lead the U.S. Intelligence Community to that compound? why the need to nail it down that tightly?) is ignorant or a moron. But this is a nurse’s son speaking here.

[omarali50]

On polio I absolutely agree that the CIA should not have added fuel to the anti-polio vax fire, but I would point out that the ban against polio vaccination has been there since 2007, well before poor Dr Afridi and his team of health visitors tried to get DNA. The campaign against polio vaccine started even before the 2007 ban on vaccination in Waziristan. You can read more about the Polio Jihad here: http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksd...lio-jihad.html

I am curious, what do you think was the big picture that was missed in Pakistan?

Again, I would add that I dont think the US did a good job. Far from it. I now think the US was not culturally or institutionally capable of obtaining a really good outcome in the region and would have done much better to stay out. Long distance punishment of hostile governments, support to their enemies and carrots to buy them out would have been cheaper and at least as effective, probably far more so. But the US public wanted a war after 9-11 so there was a war. By now the blood lust has settled, so the whole exercise is looking pointless.
But I dont think the mistakes were the ones Kugelman thinks were mistakes. (To be fair, I am not sure what he thinks. I dont think he has spelled out his "lessons learned" in that article).

[davidbfpo]

As the USA reduces its presence in Afghanistan The Long War Journal's blog has this intriguing story, which starts with:

The US military turned over Latif Mehsud, formerly a senior commander in the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, to the Pakistani government within the past week. Latif was snatched by US forces from Afghan intelligence officials in the Afghan province of Logar in October 2013.

Link: http://www.longwarjournal.org/threat...#ixzz3LLYN0Fxk

Just whether as a 'bad' Pakistani Taliban leader he remains in custody is a moot point.